Picked it up from Loch Lomond it seems it has been hanging out there for the past few years in different guises and owners.

But had it up around 40-45 knots on a glassy Loch Lomond and it chine walked badly then at WOT.

But won't even get near WOT down here in the solent I reckon too much chop.

But have been overhauling the boat the past couple of months getting the hull repaired, filling numerous screw holes in deck, ripping out and replacing all the wiring and getting the engine serviced and repaired after one of the voltage regulators caught fire while at our local engine "SPECIALIST"

Fantastic I do wonder where some of my old boats have gone

As I said , flat calm was its enemy at full bung, a chop is much better , but it slapped and slammed badly in it sometimes .. the bow is so slender and without chines that if you took the sea at an angle it made quite an uncomfortable ride . You need to experiment with some ballast in the bow It was a fine enough boat .. apart from Northcrafts tube work . How is the engine ? it used to die pulling up a skier , it had some kind of flat spot where there was no juice .. is that what you were referring to in your original post ?

Not experienced any flat spot but just engaged it goes along slowly and then once it pops over the plane it's off like a rocket.

The throttle is like a light switch though I'm use to heavier boats I guess where you push the throttle fully open and it slowly gets up to full speed.

This boat you move the throttle once on the plane just a centimetre or so and your hanging on for dear life.

Best way to describe it is like having a V8 in a range rover and flooring it and having a V8 in a F1 car and flooring it the power delivery are worlds apart.

But designing a bow locker for the boat at the moment and was worried about adding to much weight in the construction but I'm not too worried now.

Well 2 boats after that one was an 8.5 with a 275 Verado .... it was like shit off a shovel compared to the 5.8 ... but no doubt the chine walking on the 5.8 seasport wasnt funny .. it is violent and not for the faint hearted .. On the original config as you can see there was only a central jockey so when I first experienced it .. my crew were equally frightened, as they were not seated internally

chine walking ? put a sack of sand in the bow to keep its bow down that will do it, before I retired a few years ago we had a boat with a 135hp on the back, and the royal marines wanted to slow it down, we spent several days doing this that and the other, we slowed it down by about two knots, in the end the R.M.s put a bag of sand in the bow.

I am smiling immensley at the co-incidence of you two owning the same beast at one time......Happy boating to you both.

Cheers fella .. It was my first ever RIB so has a special memory for me Not to mention some of the ones it generated .. such as me loosing my footing and slamming the throttle forward by accident whilst coming off the top of a 40 foot swell

Don't think so the engine is the old carb model and its a v6 so I reckon all cylinders are open at once as it really lumpy when at very low revs

I reckon only injection model engines do the cylinder opening and closing thing

This 135 was the smallest of the V6 2 strokes in their range at that time and they do run on all six, it was the model below (115 cant remember if its a 4 or 3 cylinder) that shut off some cylinders and thats why I specced the 135 as the smaller motor was exceedingly lumpy, I was advised by the dealer.